At its most basic core, “The Revenant” is a tale of revenge, but it manages to be much more.
The story follows Hugh Glass, a trapper frontiersman who is in charge of leading a group to safety by avoiding the Native Americans and finding the best possible paths to get back to their larger trade post.
His journey becomes complicated when Glass is attacked by a bear and nearly killed, left for dead by his comrade John Fitzgerald.
Most of the movie is the adventure that Glass goes on to track down Fitzgerald and make him pay for leaving him behind.
The story, while good, is not what stands out in this movie. What stands out is the acting and cinematography.
Leonardo DiCaprio takes on the captivating lead role.
His character goes through hell throughout the movie and DiCaprio manages to show the pain that he is going through at every moment.
It’s easy to get lost in his character and find yourself hurting for all the pain he is going through.
It forces the audience to want him to fulfill his revenge.
Opposite DiCaprio is Tom Hardy who also puts up a strong performance as the Native-American-hating Fitzgerald. He does a great job of making Fitzgerald easy to hate, but not necessarily easy to want dead.
While many of his actions in the movie are flawed, they are rooted in his character’s past history.
The way the movie looks also stands out as exceptional.
There was little-to-no CGI, computer-generated imagery, which kept everything looking crisp in the harsh woodlands that Glass has to travel through.
Every scene in the movie displayed a punishing landscape, matched with an equally punishing story, showing how hard nature and the natives can hit when someone invades their territory.